7:24 PM.
I sit down to write.
But what?
What is there left, to say,
that hasn't been said before?
Years before me, years alongside,
the greats have written everything
that I imagine writing.
"Flowers blooming, some fading,
mangoes cut and served on a steel plate,
a lone chair on the verandah;
the imprints of mother's hands
in neatly folded clothes,
father in his worn out t-shirt, smiles..."
My brain mumbles some lines.
What do you write,
when all has already been said?
You write what you feel. Always.

-

You will let it out
this light within,
for it will burn your insides
if you don't.
But outside, the light
will strike a tree, a house,
a broken skeleton of a human,
and all that will remain
will be a mere shadow of yourself.
So, you will let it in,
this light within
that you had let out.
And after scores of trials
of this "in and out" business,
one day you will build,
a lighthouse inside your chest.
Shadows and light, all inside,
but your glow will illuminate
even what remains outside.

-

Is my happiness greater than
your happiness?
My success, bigger than
your success?
My love, grander than
your love?
My power, my money, my house, my degrees, my destiny...
is it all, more?
So much time goes...
we forget, to pause and ask,
"is this my peace, my heart, my home?"

-

Sometimes maybe,
nonchalance
is necessary.
We blame this and that,
for not caring enough,
for not stopping on their tracks,
for moving, walking,
without catching a breath for us,
but,
when things go wrong,
terribly wrong,
like a plane crash,
or a life that's deemed trash,
don't we all turn towards
things that are the most
nonchalant?
Like the sun, the moon,
or God (if you must),
don't we all, after all,want
some nonchalant love?
Perhaps, to survive, we must all
become a little nonchalant
in this world.
Isn't that what they all, fancily
term as, "the show must go on?"

-

Some fret about the sky,
some cry about the clouds;
in emptiness and in fullness,
there is always something
to occupy one's mind.
Perhaps, the moon or the sun
has all the answers,
but neither ever replies.
So some fret about the sky,
some cry about the clouds:
while the sun and the moon shine.
Someday, the ocean will rise
and touch the sky,
maybe then, it will not look like
the sky is too empty, or too full,
just right.

-

The ocean boasted
of her depths,
her tsunamis, her waves;
meanwhile, humans
kept crowding
the shallow shores
and their sand.
Only the moon shone through,
but the ocean depths evaded it too.
Silently, her interiors worked,
spun a whole world,
that the world conveniently
kept terming an "inexplicable darkness."
She did miss, the shallow shores,
time and time again,
so, waved and waved
to touch the sand.
Yet, she always returned,
sometimes empty handed,
sometimes with some remnant sand,
to her own core.
Only the moon shone through,
but the ocean depths evaded it too.
Yet, the moon had all the time
to be her witness,
and just wait outside.
And for the ocean, that made
all the difference.
To be loved is to be seen, nothing else.

-

12:43.
The world keeps shifting. You think the earth is just rotating, but new plants, ideas, events are continually erupting. Guns and roses collide somewhere, fire erupts elsewhere, maybe in your heart, maybe everyone's, everywhere? The world keeps shifting.
"To divide or not to divide?" becomes a decisive question.
"To empath, or engage only with the vicinity of the self?" a pertinent problem.
Amidst all these, a butterfly flaps its wings somewhere: guns are out, hearts sealed, people tip-toe around topics, and the earth, still, keeps rotating...
New plants, ideas, events are continually erupting, and yet, maybe the world is not shifting....

-

This little tree
on my terrace faced
the harshest of winters,
so decided, to shed
all its leaves.
Sometimes losing means
surviving, isn't it?
But then,
as spring came,
the tree could not wait,
for new leaves to come back.
It just grew, a whole bunch
of fresh flowers
on its exposed branch.
As if to say, "hey, I am not done
mourning yet, but
look at the extent
of my resilience!"
Sometimes strength is nothing else,
just a bunch of soft flowers,
on a naked branch.
Maybe softness is the strongest form of defiance.

-

I could not watch the match today, you know how life sometimes gets in the way? And yet, when the headline flashed on my screen, "MS Dhoni's lightning quick hands whip the bails off in a flash.." I could not help but let my mind have its little dose of happy flashbacks.
To find your passion is a thing, but to do something and make it look so passionate, another. You do not have to do this. Yet, at 43, Dhoni, you still teach. You make cricket look like life. And life is just what you do, with grit and resilience, practice and grace; life is what you do when you do not really have to.
They say if you really look, you can find your lessons anywhere. I could not watch the match today, but with a tiny headline, Dhoni got me my message: "whatever you do, please do not forget to give it some life, some lightning flash, some fun, some grace. And if nothing works out, just quickly whip off the bails!"

-

It amazes me how the sunset
and the sunrise
have the same hue of red;
just that at the end,
the sun looks
a little more tired
than when it started.
The rest, is all the same:
scattered fragments
of light, trying
to reach your eyes,
birds across the horizon
forming a determined line.
If it's all the same,
tell me then,
which red of the sun
would you have?
The freshly brewed hope
of a lively sunrise,
or the resilient red
of a graceful sunset?

-